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Contemplative, Carl Sandburg, in English Clear filters

ContemplativeCarl Sandburg

Sunset from Omaha Hotel Window

Into the blue river hills The red sun runners go And the long sand changes And to-day is a goner And to-day is not worth haggling over. Here in Omaha The gloaming is bitter As in Chicago Or Kenosha. The long sand changes. To-day is a goner. Time knocks in another brass nail. Another yellow plunger shoots the dark. Constellations Wheeling over Omaha As in Chicago
ContemplativeCarl Sandburg

Monotone

The monotone of the rain is beautiful, And the sudden rise and slow relapse Of the long multitudinous rain. The sun on the hills is beautiful, Or a captured sunset sea-flung, Bannered with fire and gold. A face I know is beautiful — With fire and gold of sky and sea, And the peace of long warm rain.
ContemplativeCarl Sandburg

Passers-by

Passers-by, Out of your many faces Flash memories to me Now at the day end Away from the sidewalks Where your shoe soles traveled And your voices rose and blent To form the city's afternoon roar Hindering an old silence. Passers-by, I remember lean ones among you, Throats in the clutch of a hope, Lips written over with strivings, Mouths that kiss only for love, Records of great wishes slept with, Held long
ContemplativeCarl Sandburg

A Sphinx

Close-mouthed you sat five thousand years and never let out a whisper. Processions came by, marchers, asking questions you answered with grey eyes never blinking, shut lips never talking. Not one croak of anything you know has come from your cat crouch of ages. I am one of those who know all you know and I keep my questions : I know the answers you hold.
ContemplativeCarl Sandburg

And They Obey

Smash down the cities. Knock the walls to pieces. Break the factories and cathedrals, warehouses and homes Into loose piles of stone and lumber and black burnt wood : You are the soldiers and we command you. Build up the cities. Set up the walls again. Put together once more the factories and cathedrals, warehouses and homes Into buildings for life and labor : You are workmen and citizens all: We command you.
ContemplativeCarl Sandburg

Statistics

Napoleon shifted, Restless in the old sarcophagus And murmured to a watchguard : "Who goes there?" " Twenty-one million men. Soldiers, armies, guns, Twenty-one million Afoot, horseback. In the air. Under the sea." And Napoleon turned to his sleep : " It is not my world answering ; It is some dreamer who knows not The world I marched in From Calais to Moscow." And he slept on
ContemplativeCarl Sandburg

Flux

Sand of the sea runs red Where the sunset reaches and quivers. Sand of the sea runs yellow Where the moon slants and wavers.
ContemplativeCarl Sandburg

Choose

The single clenched fist lifted and ready, Or the open asking hand held out and waiting. Choose : For we meet by one or the other.
ContemplativeCarl Sandburg

Fog

The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on.
ContemplativeCarl Sandburg

Dunes

What do we see here in the sand dunes of the white moon alone with our thoughts, Bill, Alone with our dreams, Bill, soft as the women tying scarves around their heads dancing, Alone with a picture and a picture coming one after the other of all the dead, The dead more than all these grains of sand one by one piled here in the moon. Piled against the sky-line taking shapes like the hand of the wind wanted, What do we see here, Bill, outside of what the wise men beat their heads on, Outside of what the poets cry for and the soldiers drive on headlong and leave their skulls in the sun for — what, Bill?

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